cuisine.co.nz - food - the cuisine 100 - part one (1

The Cuisine 100 - Part One (1 - 20)

The food, drink, people, places and things we love. There’s a lot of good food in this country, but which products, which people, which places have that special edge? We asked our contributors to name their favourites – the things that make a real difference to them, right now, in the quality of New Zealand’s culinary experience. Then we had a long debate about which would make the final list. Here’s the result, in no special order.

1. SOURDOUGH BREAD

Artisan baking had a thin tradition in New Zealand, despite the efforts of a handful of mainly mid-European immigrant bakers over many years. But 10 years ago there was a revolution. The instigators were Kaye and Richard Tollenaar at Pandoro in the Auckland suburb of Parnell, and their instrument of change was the sourdough starter.
It sounds simple. You make a dough of water and flour and set it to capture wild yeasts from the air. Over some days you feed the mix with more water and flour. It takes longer than bread made with baker’s yeast, but the result is rich, tangy, chewy and wonderfully crusty. Until just 250 years ago, all leavened bread was made like this.
But making it well is a far subtler matter. Richard learned the secret from the CIA (the Culinary Institute of America), and although he and Kaye are no longer involved with Pandoro, they have many worthy successors.
Food editor Lauraine Jacobs reckons the sourdough boule made by the Pop In Pâtisserie in Matakana could be the finest of its kind in the country. Others give that title to the potato sourdough from Auckland’s Wild Wheat, while further south, the breads of Le Moulin and the Bordeaux Bakery in Wellington, Rachel Scott in Canterbury, Harbour St Bakery in Oamaru and Dunedin’s Indigo – among others – all have their own vocal fans.

2. KING SALMON

Tokyo sushi bar owners pay a premium for our rare flaming orange species of salmon, introduced here in the 19th century and also known as Pacific or quinnat. The oil is in the flesh, rather than in a subcutaneous fat layer as in the inferior but more common Atlantic species farmed elsewhere in the world.
Our government won’t allow Atlantic salmon to be introduced for farming here, so the industry has to raise the skittery, temperamental Pacific species. Good cooked any way you like, and even better when it’s nice and fresh and not cooked at all. Widely available.

3. PIAKO PETE’S SMOKED FISH AND FLOUNDER

Piako Pete’s flounder was minding its own business in the Thames Estuary just hours before he’s got it on sale to you at his stall by the Kopu Bridge, Pipiroa. He sells sensational smoked fish as well, and has some enthusiastic restaurant clients. And he is not alone – the smoked-fish industry just might be the best-kept secret in New Zealand food. Our contributors have said great things about the Coromandel Smoking Company, the Smokehouse at Mapua, Vanderdrift’s smoked eel in Stratford, Aoraki smoked salmon, Aquahaven’s smoked eel in Leeston, Nature Smoke in Stoke and Farm Smokehouse in Christchurch.

4. THE COFFEE KINGS

How good is it now? We drink flat whites and long blacks and every possible variation of either, and we can do it sitting at pavement tables in the sun. As for the brew itself, when it’s fresh-roasted and strong-bodied, New Zealand coffee is more satisfying than either the dishwater they serve in the US or the lukewarm smear of mud you sometimes find in a European cup. Why? Because in the 1980s and 90s a visionary group of café-owne

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